Time to Talk about the 2008 Election

On the 27th of August, I went in print and in electrons to predict that the Kerry Campaign was over. Most other political pundits, except those whose income depends on the pretense that Kerry has a chance, have since reached the same conclusion. In the meantime, Dan Rather has ceased to exist (though no one has told him yet), and CBS and the “old media” may also go down in flames.

But that’s not what I came to talk about. I came to talk about the election of 2008.

Last weekend I was sitting on a dock by a TVA lake in Tennessee at a barbeque with friends and neighbors of my in-laws. A gentleman named James Talley happened to tell me about a letter he had published in USA Today in January. I told him there was a story there, and I’d write it. Here are his first two paragraphs:

“The time has come for this archaic process we call election primary - a long drawn out process state by state - to be abolished and replaced by a true national primary. 2004 should be the last year for this old system.

“In our present ancient process by the time the first three or four states have voted, and the news media have declared the trends and the effective result, the party moguls have the stage set for their guy or gal. This disenfranchises the voters. Every registered American citizen deserves the opportunity to enter the voting booth and to express a choice totally uninfluenced by exit polls and media rhetoric.”

And Jim went on to suggest a date for this national primary: the Tuesday nearest to the 4th of July. In 2008 that would be 1 July.

In any proposal for major change in a long-established system, a necessary question is “How can this be accomplished?” It’s like the story about belling the cat. The mice might be in total agreement that a bell on the cat would be a safety measure. But the question immediately arises as to who will get that bell on that cat. There are two theoretical ways to accomplish what Jim suggests. One method would never succeed for pragmatic political reasons. But the other one could work, if properly approached, so it’s doable. And we can talk about whether it makes sense.

If you look over the history of national political conventions, beginning with the Anti-Masonic and National Republican Conventions in Baltimore in 1831, most of them have been reasonably exciting and have had actual tasks to perform. They have either chosen nominees in contested elections, or written platforms on contested issues.

In the span of American history, 2004 was an exceptionally dull year for conventions. Both candidates were known months in advance of their conventions. (I’m speaking here of the only parties with a chance to win in this year, the Republicans and the Democrats.) Both campaigns controlled their conventions - who would speak, what they would speak about, what the party platforms would say.

Whenever one party has a one-term occupant in the White House, its convention is almost guaranteed to be “thoroughly scripted.” That’s because no incumbent President has ever been denied renomination if he sought that. Yes, I see your hands waving. No, Lyndon Johnson was not defeated for renomination. He was not even defeated in New Hampshire by Gene McCarthy. McCarthy did run nearly even with Johnson, and demonstrated his vulnerability. Johnson then announced that he would not run again. The result was the 1968 Chicago Convention, one of the most violent and fractious in history.

Presidential nominations now begin with the Iowa Caucuses, followed by the New Hampshire Primary. Both states defend their turf by threatening to move their caucuses or primaries to an even earlier date, if any other state proposes a law to move their primaries into January. Even though these two small states are hardly typical of the United States as a whole, the press and pundits put great stock by the candidates who win in those states, plus a small number of the others who “did better than expected.”

So almost anyone who wants to be President has to spend at least a year prior to the election year preparing for a solid showing in Iowa and New Hampshire. Unless that changes, 2008 will be a repeat of 2004. Everyone seeking the Presidency will be at it for two years, and as citizens our TVs will be cluttered with both the ads and the sound bites from all those people for two years.

Then as the process continues, it’s possible that one candidate will outlast the others and force them out of the race (I’m not referring to the “tick” candidates like Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich, who burrowed in and claimed to be still in the race after it was over). When the contests on both sides are over early in the year, as now, states with later primary dates find themselves spending serious money to conduct meaningless primaries in which no one campaigns and few people vote.

There are two ways to defang the early overemphasis on Iowa and New Hampshire. One appears in the US Constitution. Article I, Section 4, of the Constitution gives the control of election laws first to the “State Legislatures,” but then adds, “Congress may at any time by Law alter such regulations....” So if Congress decided that a national primary was desirable, it could pass a law and require that result. This is theory only. The leaders of Congress have all grown up in the current system of nominations. They know how to play this game, not the new game which would result with this change. Discount to zero the chance that Congress would act on this idea before 2008.

Fortunately, that does not foreclose the change. What if two-thirds of the state legislatures decided that a national primary was a good idea? What if those legislators agreed that 1 July 2008 was a good time to conduct this primary and did so by law?

First, the excessive focus on Iowa and New Hampshire would disappear. Every candidate would justly say that for anyone to win a majority of the delegates to his/her convention, that must include a strong win in many states on 1 July. The primaries on other dates could not, mathematically, foreclose the nominations at the Conventions.

The first obvious result is that all states holding their primaries on 1 July, 2008, would be guaranteed to have contested and relevant elections. All candidates would have an incentive to go to all such states - in person, on TV, by Internet - because all such voting would matter.

The second obvious factor is this: It would be far less likely for any one candidate to take a mathematical majority in the 1 July Primary. All candidates would be “in the race” through 1 July. None of them would be likely to be “scraped off,” like an unsuccessful Indiana Jones falling off a speeding German truck. It isn’t just the press focus on the horse race aspects, but the federal election law’s provisions concerning federal matching funds, that destroys candidacies early under the present process.

It’s more likely that a national primary would produce just leading candidates for the Republican and Democratic nominations, rather than absolute winners. It’s common sense that the leading candidates would negotiate with the trailing candidates that they generally agreed with. Perhaps that would result in a committed majority (and ticket) in either or both parties before their 2008 conventions.

But there’s a far greater chance under this process than under the present one, that there would NOT be a final, mathematical victory in either or both of the Republican and Democratic Conventions in 2008 as there was in 2004. Are there public benefits to this difference?

Some Democrats are already having buyer’s remorse about their selection of John Kerry in 2004. The wrong time to find out about major defects in your candidate for President is after your Party has selected that person. The whole point of primary elections is to test candidates against each other, including a comparison of their defects as well as their assets.

If the proposed National Primary did not produce nominees for both Parties, that would guarantee that the public and press review of the candidates continued until the Conventions. That would allow a maximum opportunity for sound decisions on nominees and minimum risk of buyer’s remorse. “Marry in haste, repent in leisure,” is attributed to Ben Franklin. Committing to a candidate is a form of political marriage. The observation applies, though Franklin may have borrowed it.

Another public advantage concerns issues. If the candidates are not buttoned up before the Conventions, then the issues and party platforms are probably not buttoned up either. When was the last time you recall seeing a debate on any platform point at a Convention? And yet, choosing between policy choices on subjects from war and peace to social security are the very essence of modern American politics.

Why should the presidential nominating process continue to be rigged the way it is today, so that the conversations Americans routinely have around water coolers and at kitchen tables are prevented at the Party Conventions? A National Primary offers the best chance of Conventions that have real work to do - candidates to choose, issues to decide.

And if the Conventions offer more than pre-scripted content, the press is more likely to offer more coverage. Danger attracts the press. Would anyone cover NASCAR races if there was a written guarantee in advance of no car crashes? Think of the plot theory behind all movies and TV shows. If there’s no conflict, there’s no story.

Of course the purpose of the leading candidates is always to go over the top. Close out debate on issues. Line up supporting speakers, and conduct a unified Convention. But what’s good for the individual candidate isn’t necessarily healthy for either the whole Party, or the whole nation.

I think a National Primary is an excellent idea. And I thank Jim Talley for reminding me of it a week ago. What are your thoughts on the subject?

About the Author: John Armor is a civil rights attorney who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. CongressmanBillybob@earthlink.net

There is nothing in the Constitution to support the government stepping in and mandating who the major parties may nominate and how they nominate them. Sorry, but this is a party and state issue.

I also think this would diminish the likelihood that Hillary! will be nominated by the Democrats in 2008.

This could also have greatly diminished the chance of Bush being nominated in 2000. Ever think of that?

I think it is most likely our votes would be meaningless as the pols would fix the ticket in the back rooms before a brokered convention opened.

To have any hope of avoiding establishment control, the conventions would have to begin within a week, at most, of the primary, preferably the next day.

I would modestly suggest that all future conventions be held in Las Vegas.

These days every convention makes hundreds of thousands of enemies for the party holding it, due to the disruption of life in their city.
Parties either pick a city in a state so solidly theirs they can afford to lose the votes, or in one they are certainly going to lose, so that a few more votes don't matter.

Las Vegas is a city devoted to conventions. The casinos already have more security than either convention this year could have dreamed of, and use it smoothly enough not to irritate the crowds.

There are enough Hotel Rooms, Entertainment and large meeting spaces to hold both conventions at once, which should be entertaining in itself.

So9

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